William Boyd - Waiting for Sunrise

“What?”

“Yes. Hanged himself in the actual theatre — in ‘Hell’. Very dramatic statement. And sad, of course.”

They stood there for a few seconds looking at the poster in silence. There was a distinct resemblance to Hettie Bull, Lysander saw, now he looked at Andromeda’s face and not her naked body.

“I’d better be going,” Bensimon said. “I’ve an official dinner, hence the get-up. Dozens of doctors, for my sins. Have you seen Miss Bull yet?”

“No,” Lysander said. They looked around the crowded room. Lysander suddenly saw her — her small figure. He pointed. “There she is.”

“We should say hello,” Bensimon said, and they made their way across the room towards her.

Hettie Bull was standing with three men. As he and Bensimon crossed the room through the crowd towards her, Lysander noticed that she was wearing billowing cerise harem-style pantaloons, a short black satin jacket with diamanté buttons and a collar and tie. Her mass of hair was loosely piled up on her head and secured with many tortoiseshell combs. A small appliquéd bag hung from her shoulder on a braided cord reaching almost to her knees. When she turned to greet them Lysander heard a soft tinkling from ground level and looked down to see small silver bells sewn to the front of her shoes. Bensimon made his farewells and left. Hettie Bull turned to Lysander. Her big hazel eyes.

“What do you think of Udo’s paintings?” she asked.

“I like them. Very much. No, I do.”

She was staring at him intently but her mood seemed calm and assured. Perhaps she’d taken some more of Dr Bensimon’s medicine. She looked vaguely androgynous in her little jacket with its collar and tie.

“Then you must tell him yourself,” she said and moved off on chiming feet to tap the elbow of a man standing a few yards away, engaged in a conversation with two women wearing wide floppy hats. Hettie brought him over.

“Udo Hoff — Mr Lysander Rief.”

Lysander shook hands. Hoff was a very thick-set, burly man in his thirties, shorter than Lysander, with an immense breadth of chest and shoulder, a shaven head and a pointed russet beard. He seemed over-muscular, like a circus strong-man, almost bursting the stressed buttons of his shirt front, his thick neck straining at his collar.

“Mr Rief’s also with Dr Bensimon,” Hettie explained. “That’s how we met.”

Lysander immediately wished she hadn’t explained as Hoff seemed to look him up and down with new hostility and something of a sneer crossed his features.

“Ah, the Viennese cure,” he said. “Is this the latest fashion in London?” He spoke good accented English.

“No. Not at all,” Lysander said, defensively. The man seemed suddenly keen to provoke him. So — mollification, charm. He would be pleasant and nice, Frau K would be proud of him.

“I really admire your paintings — very striking. Most intriguing.”

Hoff made a flipping gesture with the palm of one hand as if a fly were bothering him.

“How are you enjoying our city?” he asked in a flat voice. Lysander wondered if this was some kind of joke or test. He decided to take it as genuine.

“Very much. I was just thinking this evening, as I walked along the Ring before coming here, how impressive it was. Exceptionally well laid out with a generosity of scale that you won’t find in —”

“You like the Ring?” Hoff said, incredulous.

“Emphatically. I think it’s —”

“You do realize these are new buildings, only a few decades old, if that?”

“I have read my guidebook carefully —”

Hoff actually prodded him on the arm with a finger, his eyebrows circumflexing in a strange anguished frown.

“I abominate the Ring,” Hoff said, a little tremor in his voice. “The Ring is a grotesque bourgeois sham. It’s an offence to the eye, to one’s sense of what is right, one’s most basic values. I close my eyes when I see the Ring. New buildings masquerading as something ancient and venerable. Shameful. We Viennese artists live in a permanent sense of shame.” He poked him again in the arm as if to add emphasis and walked away.

“Good god…Sorry about that,” Lysander said to Hettie. “I had no idea it was a sensitive subject.”

“No, we artist types aren’t meant to ‘like’ the Ring,” she said, then lowering her voice, added, “But I have to say I do, rather.”

“Same here. There’s nothing like it in London.”

She raised her face to him. She’s so gamine , Lysander thought, I feel I could pick her up with one hand.

“When am I going to sculpt you?” she said. “You’re not leaving town, are you?”

“No — no plans. Actually, things are going rather well with Dr Bensimon — I’ll be here for at least another month.”

“Then come to my studio one afternoon, I can do some preliminary drawings.” She rummaged in her little bag and scribbled down an address on a scrap of paper.

“It’s on the outskirts. You can get the train to Ottakring and walk from the station. Maybe take a cab the first time just to be sure. Shall we say Monday at four?”

“Ah, yes,” Lysander looked at her address. Was this wise? — but he was oddly tempted. “Thank you.”

She put her hand on his arm. “Wonderful. You’ve a most interesting face.” She glanced around. “I’d better go and find Udo in case he gets even angrier. See you on Monday.” She smiled and walked away, the tinkle of her bells swiftly lost in the hum and chatter of the conversation.

When God turned his hand from the making of man

And woman, of matter much finer,

Some black flux and rust, well seasoned with dust

Remained — so he fashioned the miner.

Miner — delver not climber

Miner — world’s underground designer

Miner — ocean liner (?)

Miner — confine her/repiner/incliner/diner

Quite pleased with first verse. Bit stuck.

♦

Hettie Bull. Bullish man — Udo Hoff. Bull in a china shop. Bull fighter. Matador. Little jacket. White shirt and tie. Bull fighting bull.

♦

“Happy people are never brilliant. Art requires friction.” Who said that? Nonsense. Art is the pursuit of a kind of harmony and integrity. A harmonious life full of integrity is artistic. Ergo. Q.E.D.

Dream. I was shaving and then in the mirror my face turned into my father’s. How are you, old son? he said. I’m well, father, I said. I miss you. Step through the mirror and join me, then, he said, come on, lad. I touched the mirror and his face turned back to mine.

♦

I remember an argument I had with Blanche because she’d left me a note written in pencil. I said that was disrespectful — she wrote to me as if she were jotting down a list of groceries — you didn’t write in pencil to someone you loved. She called me a silly arrogant prig. She was right — sometimes I think a fundamental priggishness is my worst feature. Not priggishness, so much, as worrying or making a fuss about things that are of no consequence at all.

♦

Great acting is being able to say “Pass the salt, please,” without sounding weird or odd or stupid or portentous. Great acting is being able to say “Horror! Horror! Horror!” without sounding weird or odd or stupid or portentous.

♦

Life is more than love. Turn that around. Love is more than life. Makes just as much sense. This is less true if you say LOVE = SEX–LOVE. Life is more than sex-love. Sex-love is not more than life. True. Didn’t Dostoevsky say something similar? You never step into the same river twice, similarly there is never a simple, single thought. The simplest thought can be qualified again and again and again. I have a headache — because I drank too much schnapps with Wolfram, who made me laugh. The simple headache has its history, its penumbra, and is touched by my pre-headache life and (I hope) my post-headache life. Everything is unbelievably complicated. Everything.